Olympian, War Hero, POW – Louis Zamperini

Olympic distance runner, World War II hero and celebrated USC Alumnus Louis Zamperini spoke to a maximum capacity audience recently at USC about the power of resilience.

Louis Zemperini placed 8th in the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a distance runner. Later, during WWII, he was stranded for 47 days after his aircraft crashed into the Japanese-controlled waters of the Pacific Ocean and became a Japanese prisoner of war.

Through it all, he kept his sense of humor.

“The mayor asked me if any good came out of being a prisoner of war in Japan,” Zamperini said. “I said, ‘Yeah, it prepared me for 55 years of married life.’ ”